Trying to be as Spanish as We Can in America: Transfer 2, Week 5‏

Hello everyone! We had a really awesome week this week. Before, we
were focusing most of our attention on reactivating less-actives and
working with recent converts, but this week we decided to just focus
all our attention on the investigators and we were pretty successful
with it!

We’ve been teaching an older lady with cancer, but it’s really hard to
get a hold of her because she is always feeling bad or always at the
doctor, so it’s hard to work with her schedule. We’ve also been
working with a guy who has been investigating for a while and we’re
trying to make him take steps toward the right direction in his gospel
progression. Those are our most promising right now, but we also found
a couple new people to talk to this week, so hopefully we can start
getting them to progress!

Last P-Day we went down to Oregon City to hang out with Elder Buhler
and Elder Cornwall and we made a huge lunch of Mexican food. We made
homemade tortillas, rice, refried beans and longaniza, which is like
Mexican sausage. We decided that after the mission, we can have very
successful taco truck careers, so the future is bright.

On Wednesday the Sopers took us out to dinner at a really nice German
place because it was Sister Sopers birthday and she wanted to spend it
with us! They are the best members, and we love them so much. And I
also got to have schnitzel for the first time. Look at me getting so
cultured out here.

On Friday Elder Mugleston had a mission leadership meeting, so I got
to spend the day with Elder White. He’s a greenie from Utah and we are
SO much alike. We had a lot of success finding previous investigators
and finding new people to talk to. We also had a little too much fun
together, but I’ll talk about that a little later.

On Sunday we had church like regular, but a investigator who just
barely moved from Mexico showed up! He came and we got to talk to him.
He said when he was in Mexico he talked to the missionaries and so
after he moved here he decided to just go to church. He’s super
golden, and I consider it a miracle.

Today for P-Day we went and played futbol with all the other Spanish
missionaries in the mission, because you learn to love futbol when you
are around Hispanic people all the time. It was so much fun, but I am
so exhausted now! I haven’t ran that much since lacrosse season, so I
realized that I need to get back in shape. But it was so much fun
getting to have all of us together as friends and play some soccer
while we yelled at each other in Spanish. And we also played with two
nonmembers because they were at the field when we got there and asked
if they could join. It was an awesome P-Day.

This week I also finished reading the Book of Mormon. When I was in
the MTC, I decided that I wanted to read the Book of Mormon from cover
to cover while I was on my mission. My Branch President in the MTC
told us that if we read 6 chapters a day, we could finish in 6 weeks.
Well, it took me longer than a transfer, but I finally finished it. I
have read every word of the Book of Mormon, and I can testify that it
is true. I know that it is the word of God. I know that it is another
testament of Jesus Christ. I know that it was divinely inspired and
written for our day. I add my testimony to that of Elder Holland’s
great-grandfather when he said “No wicked man could write such a book
as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he
were commanded of God to do so” (October 2009, Safety for the Soul,
Elder Holland). I know that every page testifies of Christ. I can
testify with Joseph Smith when he said “the Book of Mormon was the
most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion,
and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by
any other book” (Introduction to the Book of Mormon). I don’t have any
doubt. We have been promised that if we read the Book of Mormon cover
to cover our faith, knowledge and testimonies will grow. My faith,
knowledge and testimony has grown, and I know yours will too. How
blessed we are to have the Book of Mormon in our lives.

I don’t have many pictures this week, but I do want to add the video
of Elder White and I having a little bit of fun. It’s a video of us
doing language study. Hope you enjoy it.